How to Get More out of Video Conferencing Infrastructure

How to Get More out of Video Conferencing InfrastructureBridging gap between webcasting and video conferencing can help build video culture, as MediaPlatform explains in this sponsored post.

Bridging gap between webcasting and video conferencing can help build video culture, as MediaPlatform explains in this sponsored post.

The ability to support video meetings is quickly becoming a business objective, a competitive differentiator that leads to improved collaboration, innovation, efficiency, and productivity. But as businesses look to establish a video meeting culture, they are often tripped up by the disparate technologies that shape traditional video business experiences.

To host large-scale meetings, such as all-hands-on CEO annual addresses or CFO-led quarterly earnings updates, businesses typically rely on webcasting platforms that can support live streaming to hundreds or thousands -- even tens of thousands -- of employees. To assure a high-quality webcast experience, businesses often conduct these meetings using off-site studios and professional production teams.

Video room systems, on the other hand, serve the needs of the medium-sized meeting involving point-to-multipoint conferences among business colleagues. And video apps, either standalone or incorporated into UC suites, are increasingly coming into play for the one-to-one or small-group meeting.

But as businesses look to make video meetings part and parcel of the corporate culture, many are taking a hard look at this approach. When aiming to encourage the use of video meetings on a regular basis, how much sense does it make to have top executives deliver an employee address from a remotely located studio with the assistance of a full-scale webcast production team? Wouldn't they be more comfortable -- less stiff and more approachable, shall we say -- if they could convene that meeting merely by firing up their UC clients or stepping into the video-equipped conference room they use for everyday business meetings?

Creating a strong video culture must start with upper management and trickle down to every business user. Key is making the right technology choices, ones that will encourage no muss, no fuss video meetings whatever the business need.

Businesses that have taken this to heart, bringing together disparate videoconferencing infrastructure and webcasting environments, are benefitting in a variety of ways. For starters, businesses see increased use of video when presenters can host large-scale meetings from the familiar video conferencing room setting, or even from a remote location using a cloud video app. The more comfortable presenters are, the more inclined they are to make video their default choice.

In addition, integrating different environments creates a seamless video meeting experience for all speakers and participants, whether they're sitting in a room or participating while on the road. When the approach to the CFO's quarterly global webcast to financial and business analysts is no longer any different from the way a project manager conducts a weekly videoconference among a handful of team members, then the barriers to video meetings truly fall away.

Business see bottom-line benefits, as well -- improved total cost of ownership for their video conferencing infrastructure, complemented by reduced spending on webcast production.

The idea of using existing videoconferencing hardware and software to host broadcast video meetings is worth exploring if your business is building a video culture and looking to get more out of your existing videoconferencing infrastructure. Videoconferencing gateways such as our SmartBridge can enable integration between webcast platforms and SIP-compliant videoconferencing systems, and this means users can conduct webcasts using the videoconferencing hardware and software with which they're already comfortable.

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